Support for CESR’s Emerging Methodology

CESR has been developing its methodology in consultation with a wide range of relevant experts. Here is what some of them have to say about CESR's new approach:


Ken Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

I am impressed by the seriousness with which you are redirecting the work of the Center for Economic and Social Rights. As you know, the quest for economic and social rights has too often been hampered by a lack of analytic rigor. Too much that passes for advocacy in this area reduces to sloganeering, without the careful research and analysis needed to prove that a government isn’t conscientiously using its available resources to progressively realize the right in question…This is precisely the approach that should maximize impact in this important area.

Michael Ignatieff, Director of the Carr Center and Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government

The type of methodology that CESR is trying to develop—using quantitative indicators to monitor ESR violations in specific cases—is precisely the type of work that I think the human rights movement should be doing in order to adopt the 'measurement revolution' that has been underway in the fields of development and governance.

Adam Przeworski, Department of Politics at New York University

Having studied your documents, I became impressed by the project of your Center. The design and delivery of social policies entail several technical issues and, perhaps as a result, the quest for economic and social rights has too often been hampered by a lack of analytic rigor. Your efforts to apply the state-of-the-art research methods into the analysis of particular social policies promise a far more effective advocacy tool than traditional advocates of economic and social rights have tended to produce. You have my full support and a promise of collaboration.

Alicia Yamin, Director of Research and Investigations, Physicians for Human Rights

The field [of economic and social rights] is receiving ever-increasing attention in UN and other circles. However, few have systematically thought through methodological approaches to address the polycentric nature of determinations underlying the realization of economic and social rights or have looked carefully at resource prioritization. Your new methodological approach—and emphasis on indicators to look at these questions—can fill a serious gap in the field and make another pioneering contribution to the human rights movement.

Sakiko Fukuda Parr, Former Director and Chief Author of UNDP’s Human Development Reports; Research Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government

CESR’s plans to develop methodologies for assessing violations of economic and social rights fills an important gap that is a bottleneck to more effective advocacy on social and economic rights, their recognition as important rights...I believe that a serious professionally grounded NGO like the CESR is the appropriate place to develop indicators that would have both methodological and conceptual credibility as well as be pragmatic and usable.

Ignacio Saiz, Director, Policy Program, Amnesty International - International Secretariat

I believe that in developing innovative methodologies and approaches correlating economic and human rights indicators and data, the Centre has set itself a ground-breaking, challenging and much needed task, and one that is not being undertaken by any other organizations working in the field of human rights applicable in the economic and social sphere. I was particularly struck by the rigour and thoughtfulness with which you have approached this project, and the keen sense of complementarity with the work of other organizations that informs your work. I very much hope that you will be able to see this project through to fruition, as I believe it would be enormously helpful to the efforts of other research, advocacy and campaigning organizations, including Amnesty International.

Nicholas Howen, Secretary General, International Commission of Jurists

I believe we are at a critical point in the advocacy on economic, social and cultural rights, a point where we need to develop and apply more rigorous ways to monitor how governments implement this set of rights, hold them clearly accountable for violations and provide practical recommendations to change law, policy and behaviour. At this point, it is important to have a global and professional organisation like the Center for Economic and Social Rights developing this work. I have been impressed by the rigour, professionalism and sense of reality of your approach to developing ways of analysing the practical application of economic, social and cultural rights.

Victor Abramovich, Member of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and former director of the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), Argentina

I have been gladly impressed by the presentation you gave at the seminar in Chile about the work the Center is doing in developing indicators to measure the fulfillment of state obligations in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural rights. Without any doubt, one of the main objections to the enforceability of these rights lays in the difficulty to establish with enough degree of certainty when the state has breached any of the obligations imposed by the domestic or the international legal system. It is particularly difficult when we consider positive obligations, in the light of the progressive realization principle and dedication of maximum available resources. That is why interdisciplinary analysis, based on serious and reliable statistical information, can develop powerful monitoring tools to identify tendencies in the state's conduct within a period of time. That kind of evaluation mechanisms have not yet been used by social organizations in their monitoring strategies. Without any doubt, the contribution of the Center you direct will be of invaluable help to the human rights movement globally and to international monitoring bodies such as the OAS's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

A New Approach to Monitoring and Advocating for Economic and Social Rights

Projected Impact of CESR’s New Approach for Economic and Social Rights Advocacy